Simon Collins finds that despite its age and tens of thousands of performances, Blood Brothers at the Richmond Theatre still packs a powerful emotional punch.
OUR VERDICT
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They came in coaches. Hundreds of kids piled out. All three tiers of the theatre were full, all 864 seats taken. I’ve never seen the Richmond so crammed.
Yet they had come to watch a drama set in a world that even their parents would not have known, post-war 1950s Liverpool, the period in which its multi-talented author, Willy Russell, born in 1947, grew up.
The clever set design shows us a backdrop skyline of the Liver Building. Framing the stage are those inner-city Victorian terraced two-up-two-down houses, close-packed, which produced intense community feelings.
Everyone was living on top of one another, and given that this was Liverpool, there was a constant patter of wit such as Wilde himself could not rival.
Those cadences of linguistic delight dance throughout the day, albeit that this is a tragic tale. It is one of the ways the story stays fresh.
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No matter that the moral universe of those years is long lost, the passions of the characters
remain vital, often expressed in song. There are some 20 musical numbers jammed into two hours, all written by Willy Russell, including some classics.
The music counterpoints the inevitable doom that we know must come to the principal characters.
The story begins with the two brothers’ bodies dead on stage, then we flashback 30 years to how it all began and follow the course of their downfall.
Their Catholic mother, Mrs Johnstone, a fine singer, forbidden contraception by the Pope, cannot stop giving birth, nine times. Mrs Lyons, the wealthy woman she cleans for, is childless, so Mrs J sells one of her twins to make ends meet. The two women seal the deal by attesting to a Bible.
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Now, the superstition says that if you tell separated twins they were once a pair, they will both die. This is the pattern of tragedy the school kids have come to see. Apparently, they are sitting their exam next Tuesday, the 19th, and must pay attention to the themes of fate and religion and superstition, but mostly how the inequities of class and money determine destiny. The tragic flaw – hamartia – of the protagonist is poverty.
Edward will grow up privileged and happily hold political office, Mickey goes to gaol, becomes a drug addict, and will obtain possession of a deadly weapon. We know their end is written in the stars. Here unfolds the strangest thing about this show: one minute they are babies in a pram, the next, seven years old. For a big chunk of the show, they are children played by adults.
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It is peculiar to see a grown man with grey hair acting silly as he supposes a child might, two grown men are doing it, more of them! In fact, most of the characters are children played by adults. Willy Russell insisted on this. It is crazy, but somehow makes sense. They change their costumes, not their bodies, as they age.
The end foretold is genuinely sad. Mrs Johnstone sees them die. I had a tear for her. The majority of the audience, especially the young, gave the actors a standing ovation.
